THE FARMER MUST KNOW. 75 



FARMING IN SOME OF ITS INTELLECTUAL 

 ASPECTS. 



From an Address before the Norfolk Agricultural Society, Sept. 30, 1857. 



BY ALVAN LAMSON. 



I wish to say something of agricultural life in some of its 

 intellectual aspects, — in other words, of reading and intellectual 

 culture in the farmer. Do not misapprehend me. I am not 

 going to insist that the farmer should be a man of many books, 

 or engage in any abstruse studies, — that he should lose himself 

 in the fog of metaphysics, — that he should become an adept in 

 chemical or botanical science or geology, or be what is called 

 literary. He has something else and something better to do 

 than that, for he is eminently a doer. But a certain kind and 

 amount of intellectual culture, you will agree with me in say- 

 ing, he should possess, both for the pleasures and profit of 

 knowledge. 



Intellectual culture and reading — what, we may imagine 

 some yet Ihigering specimen of the dark ages to ask, has the 

 farmer to do with these — admitting that he has opportunity and 

 time for them, which to a certain extent he has, in these days 

 of books and libraries ? How will the^ benefit him ? In many 

 ways. First, they will turn to account in his own occupation 

 or art — in the greater productiveness of his labors, in better 

 fruitage and more abundant harvests. Is there any doubt of 

 this ? As a general fact, may I not assert without fear of con- 

 tradiction, that intelligent labor is more effective, accomplishes 

 more, and is in every way attended with better results than 

 unintelligent ? I might take as an illustration, factory labor. 

 If I am wrong, there are those here who can set me right ; but 

 I believe that I am authorized to assert that mind is not wholly 



